The Moving Image Collections (MIC) Portal

The goal of the Moving Image Collections portal is to provide a window to the world's moving image collections for educators, researchers, exhibitors, and the general public that also allows preservationists to collaborate in describing and maintaining this unique cultural resource and thus avoid costly duplication of effort.

Moving images are unique in the use of multiple information streams (audio, visual and textual) to provide a compelling and immersive educational experience. Yet, moving images have remained isolated from the mainstream as an information resource, rarely cited in research papers, for example, or consulted as primary reference sources. Therefore another important goal of the MIC is to bring a very flexible but standardized metadata architecture to these diverse resources to integrate moving images into the information mainstream with the understanding that society values most highly what it understands and uses.

The MIC is being designed and implemented by several developer sites, in collaboration with the sponsors, the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) and the Library of Congress. MIC has been funded (2002-2004) by a grant from the National Science Foundation in the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) program. The developer sites are:

Rutgers University Libraries:

Responsible for:
System integration, union catalog and metadata database-driven infrastructure.

Participants:

Grace Agnew (Principal Investigator)

Yang Yu (Portal and Database Programmer)
Mary Beth Weber (Audiovisual Cataloging Head)
Ruth Bogan (Catalog Portal Librarian/Database Management Head)
Dr. Tefko Saracevic (School of Communication, Information and Library Studies)

Georgia Institute of Technology Interactive Media Technology Center:

Responsible for:
Website development, including search facility and dynamic portal generation.

Participants:

William E. Price (Co-Principal Investigator)

Tiffany O'Quinn (Web Developer)
Peter Presti (programmer)

University of Washington University Computing

Responsible for directory database design and development

Participants:

James DeRoest (Co-Principal Investigator)

Andy Herron (Directory Programmer)
Nate McQueen (Web Programmer)

The Association of Moving Image Archivists initially commissioned the MIC design, through a grant from the National Film Preservation Board. AMIA members serve as members of committees that provide oversight and technical guidance for components of the MIC, including the directory database, union catalog core registry and portals. The Library of Congress will be the host site for the MIC after its development and also participates actively in its development and design.

The AMIA Moving Image Gateway has been designed with several innovative components:

1. A directory of moving image archives worldwide that collects information in areas such as size and formats of collection, archive roles and audiences served, collection preservation status and issues, and collection genres. In addition, the directory will support free-text information fields and graphics to generate a dynamic web page for each archive. The tight integration of the directory with the union catalog to build a dynamic information space is one of the key innovations of the AMIA MIG design.

2. Metadata cataloging facilities to enable any participating archive to create records in two standardized descriptive cataloging formats-MARC21 and Dublin Core/MPEG-7 for ingest into the AMIA-MIG. This cataloging facility will serve as a significant outreach tool to the many smaller archives that lack a web-based catalog.

3. A union catalog that incorporates end user searching refined by elements of the archive directory such as format (film, video, etc.) and genre (documentaries, feature films), and interoperability for metadata mining and federated searching of distributed catalogs, particularly integrated support for the Open Archives Initiative. This structure involves a metadata record structure that provides several innovative features:

a. Mapping to core data elements in a registry both to aid in record ingest and to provide consistent, interpretable search results,
b. Support for the archive's own data element labels and data element display order
c. Extensible format-independent metadata design that accommodates searching, export and display in MARC21, Dublin Core, Dublin Core-Education and MPEG-7

4. A flexible portal design that integrates directory information with the union catalog to provide dynamic portal generation based on user-selected criteria (e.g. format, geographic location, collection genre types, audience served, archive roles) as well as more durable portals developed and maintained by AMIA or by participating archives (e.g. digital video portals, feature film archives, subject-specific portals, etc.).

5. A web presence for every participating archive. A significant number of smaller AMIA archives lack a web-based catalog or any web presence, beyond a home page. The directory and the metadata architecture of the union catalog are designed to generate dynamic home pages as well as dynamic search and display screens to provide an immediate web presence and web-based catalog for any participating archive.

6. An outreach and education space for each portal that provides features such as:

a. Step-by-step instructions for installing and implementing supported databases and cataloging in supported formats
b. A clearinghouse with links to information on cataloging and preserving moving image materials
c. Links to training and conference opportunities, scholarships and grants
d. A mentoring program for providing archival expertise to small and nontraditional archives, such as corporate archives with small amounts of moving images in their collections
e. An online "match-making" service to facilitate identifying the appropriate archives for archives, corporations and the general public wishing to donate moving image materials to a library or archive.